


Becoming (will update soon sorry for long wait)

by cyberpunk_trASH



Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, Blood and Injury, Dadza, Fluff and Angst, Gen, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Light Angst, Like, SO, Suicidal Thoughts, Trigger warnings;, and i quite like the result, and there's lore to the technoblade and wilbur twins thing too!, but it turned into a sbi family dynamics thingy, i swear you won't be disappointed, it kind of tells the story of how each of them ended up the way they did, minecraft but realistic, mostly canon compliant with the dreamsmp, phil struggles to be a good father, techno and wilbur hating each other because they don't realize they want to be each other kinda vibe, this was gonna be an angsty tommy oneshot, tommy is sad :(
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-05
Updated: 2021-01-05
Packaged: 2021-03-15 09:21:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28561227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cyberpunk_trASH/pseuds/cyberpunk_trASH
Summary: When Tommy stares into the lava, expecting to find the fabled monster his older brother had warned him about so long ago, all he finds is childhood memories that war's never given him the time to replay. Memories from the house in the forest, when Wilbur was still alive, and he never could've fathomed how much he'd come to hate Technoblade.And maybe, those are the real monsters.
Relationships: TommyInnit & Phil Watson, TommyInnit & Technoblade, Wilbur Soot & Technoblade, Wilbur Soot & Technoblade & TommyInnit, Wilbur Soot & Technoblade & TommyInnit & Phil Watson, Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit, Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit & Phil Watson
Comments: 4
Kudos: 90





	Becoming (will update soon sorry for long wait)

**Author's Note:**

> Yooo this is the first story I write, after MANY, MANY (full) drafts (you don't even want to know how many- ok, i'll tell you, 7) that I absolutely love. It's perfect. I know how it's going to end, I have all the lore and it's all coming together in such a cool way imo.  
> If you could give it a read that'd already be awesome

It was considered suicide to spend more than a week in the nether.

The monsters weren’t the prettiest of sights: Piglin hordes would roam the most unexpected corners and attack any traveler who had the misfortune of lacking gold, ghasts would make falling into a pit of lava look like the least painful option, and few returned to speak of the horrors that went on beyond fortress walls.

Yet it wasn’t those beasts that made the Nether such a dangerous place. The overworld was filled with much of the same filth- spending a night without shelter there was pretty much asking to be blown up and sewn with arrows, after all.

What made the nether, _the nether_ \- was how _ridiculously_ hot it was in there. There was more lava than solid floor, and most of the latter, extremely flammable netherrack, was, well, on fire. The heat waves had nowhere to go beyond the nether ceiling, which made the place into a distastefully decorated and enormous oven, but an oven, at that.

The heat was said to have driven many sound men and women completely insane, and from the stories that were told, _insane_ was an understatement.

After the first three days, one could begin to experience mild distortions in sight and hearing. After the first week, severe impairment in thought processes was commonplace, and past that, the hallucinations were said to not go away even after months or years after returning to the overworld.

_Or maybe it was loneliness that drove them crazy_ , Tommy thought, dangling his feet over the edge of the bridge. It was at least a hundred blocks above the lava, but the heat still tickled his soles, teasing. He’d been waiting for Dream for the last thirty minutes.

“I’m not crazy” the young man declared out loud, shooting a defying glance to whoever would listen. And someone stared back, an eyebrow raised.

Of course, not _actually_ someone. He was alone. But-

The lava seemed to have eyes of its own, their gaze getting under Tommy’s skin like hundreds of curious needles, poking at his soul. He hated them so, so much. It was like being naked and getting made fun of.

Thinking of Technoblade in a moment like that was dumb. He hated the man almost as much as he hated being alone. But Tommy had finally realized why Technoblade had terrorized him for years as a child about some made up monster living in the abyss.

Why he’d said nothing whenever Tommy obstinately refused to look at anywhere but the ceiling whenever they took a Nether shortcut.

Tommy would rather still believe in the monster.

There was nothing staring back but himself.

-

“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.” Techno read with an ominous and flat tone, and Tommy, little Tommy, huddled closer to him, silent.

Outside, the sun was setting. Techno had lit a lamp under the blanket fort, and Wilbur had made sure all the torches surrounding the house were still burning. Still, every little sound made Tommy’s neck hairs stand up, and he could hear his own heartbeat.

Phil had been missing for days- no explanation given, as always; and if nothing bad could happen when Dad was home, Tommy didn’t even dare imagine what could when he wasn’t. Wilbur was upstairs, but made no noise. Tommy briefly wondered if he _really_ was upstairs.

Under Techno’s blanket, nighttime didn’t feel so scary anymore. Except for when the stories had monsters in them. It was one of those times. Though, he’d never tell Techno he was scared. Not in a thousand years

“So, what does that mean? Does that abyss bitch-?” Tommy started- Techno sighed, regretting the day he’d thought it a fun idea to swear in front of the child. Since he’d stopped doing it himself to show Tommy better (to no avail), he’d found that he didn’t get the urge, even when his little brother wasn’t there. Ironically, Tommy had made him more well-spoken, he thought, and sighed again.

“You don’t have to worry, Tommy” Techno said, his voice still quiet and ominous, but a glimmer of mischief in his eyes “not yet, at least”

“Hey! What do you- when, then?” Tommy started by raising his voice, but a peek outside the blankets confirmed that they wouldn’t be seeing the sun until next morning, and he lowered his voice again.

His older brother reached for his glasses, a sooty and broken pair on his nightstand, and got off the bed. He put them on and put himself on his tiptoes to reach for the shelf above his bed, where sat a book bigger than his head and heavier than dad’s sword.

“Do you wanna hear a story, Tommy?” Techno asked, out of breath, pulling the book out of its shelf “a real one, this time.”

-

There was a thing about Technoblade. Whether he’d been thirteen, like in his memory- or however old he was now, Tommy didn’t care- he’d always watched his mouth in front of Tommy. Not only when it came to swear words, which proved useless, but also when it came to things Tommy didn’t _have_ to know.

It’d really bothered Tommy for the longest time. He was so accustomed to everyone discussing grown-up things with him in the room, to the times he’d used it to his advantage, to all the times he’d gotten what he wanted and no one had know how, that- it’d upset him when Technoblade closed his doors. When he’d kept things to himself. When he’d refused to answer questions.

And for a moment, Tommy wondered if perhaps it was because Technoblade had been the only one to not think of him as an idiot. Everyone had. Even Wilbur, even Phil, even- even Tubbo, his terrified eyes as Tecnoblade had murdered him in cold blood were still imprinted on his soul

Technoblade had treated him like a kid, yes, but never like an idiot. He’d known that if he talked too much, Tommy would understand anything, because Tommy was wicked smart.

Tommy kicked the thought away with one of the stalactites under the bridge, watching it fall to its demise. He’d like to imagine Technoblade’s sorry and ugly face on it, but he could only see his own. When the lava swallowed it, Tommy lost balance, and slipped.

-

It’d been a dark and quiet new moon night, when Phil had returned. Although his steps on the usually creaky wooden floor had been as quiet as he could’ve made them, he didn’t make it past the entrance hall.

“Dad!”

“Father.”

“Hey Phil”

His clothes were torn, his feathers were ruffled and so dirty they looked grey, there were bags under his eyes and he hadn’t shaved in days, but his smile was wide and genuine and the sparkle of his pristine blue eyes was of joy and relief.

“It’s- so great to be back” Phil said, the sword that he was holding in a tightly clenched fist fell to the ground “you boys should be sleeping, it’s so late.”

“No we sh”- Tommy began, but Wilbur put a gentle hand on his shoulder, and he magically shut up. Just that once.

“Welcome home.” Wilbur greeted him. His voice was tired and raspy, and his own looks didn’t fall short to his father’s in terms of weariness.

Phil was too tired to notice. He gestured at his children to come closer, and being careful not to knock anything down its shelf, he spread his wings and wrapped them around the boys.

For a long moment, all they heard was each other’s relieved breathing.

“Where were you?” Wilbur’s accusatory question was what broke the silence, and Phil released them from his embrace. Techno frowned at his twin- even Tommy had stopped asking when he’d turned six.

“East of here, I believe” answered Phil, taken aback- then he cast a weird glance at Wilbur, one that might’ve meant many things, except for _I don’t mind you asking that_.

Wilbur looked down at the floor with a smile halfway between apologetic and a sneer, and took a step towards the door. Before Phil’s exhausted mind could realize what was going on, Wilbur had already started running.

“Wilbur where are you g-?” Phil was sinking into panic “It’s dark outside!” He warned, desperate, stretching out his arm as if it could reach Wilbur, who had kicked the door open with an angry yell.

His older brother’s gaze was full of reproach as he turned back to slam the door in their face. And it burned. It scorched Tommy’s soul to the core, and inside him, a switch flipped. His body did it on its own- Techno was holding his hand, and Dad was gripping his shoulders, but Tommy leapt towards the door before any of them could catch him.

Wilbur’s shape wasn’t any different from any of the shadows, Tommy realized as he ran- and the noises could be anything- _anything, any-_

The soft summer breeze brought the smell of lit torches from behind, wilderness ahead, and despair everywhere. As he cried for him to come back, far behind already, Techno’s strong and steady voice cracked. Tommy kept running.

“Wilbur!” his voice bounced against the tree trunks, those that looked green and lush in the daylight now taking the shape of colossal beasts and impenetrable walls.

“Wilbur”- he had been there in the daylight, he knew this place, there was no way he didn’t, right? What was that? A lake? Was there even a lake near their house?

“Wilbgfhjgh…” a branch yanked his foot and suddenly his whole body was engulfed in mud and water.

Stuck in the pond, the cold slowly making its way to his bones, he yelled out, pleading, “Wilby!” the water tasted bitter when he swallowed what felt like buckets and buckets of that dirty mess.

“What’d you just call me?” from somewhere in the darkness, his older brother’s voice emerged, and then a warm hand took his and it was all okay now-

“Wilbur…”

“No, you called me Wilb-

A strangled sound left his brother’s throat in a way that sent a cold shiver down Tommy’s already freezing spine, and Wilbur’s grip on his hand loosened.

Tommy threw himself out of the water with the remainder of his strength, trying to see where the older boy was- and right next to the water he was, grabbing his side, panting. Something was wrong. Very, very wrong.

-

Wilbur’s aura of pride whenever he beat Techno at sparring was truly radiant. Every day, when the sun was at its peak, they would religiously meet at the other side of the creek behind the house, where the trunks of the trees Phil had cut to make a clearing were still scattered around.

They’d battle as if what they wielded weren’t sword-shaped sticks, but legendary weapons with names of their own.

Tommy used to patiently wait for Techno by his room door, and ask him how it had gone. In the beginning, when they’d started, Techno would tell him all about the way in which Wilbur had managed to win, and then Tommy would sit with him as he came up with a plan to beat his twin the next day.

It’d been around a year into the daily duels that Techno had started shutting his door in Tommy’s face. He wouldn’t discuss it anymore, and even through his raised chin and arctic cold look, Tommy could see the soreness.

The defeats stung.

And Tommy didn’t quite see why. Techno already had everything he could’ve asked for. He was so smart he could even beat Dad at chess; he’d learned to read a language called “Greek”- which was written in symbols weirder than the ones on the enchantment books, and he’d done it without anyone teaching him, just with an old story book they had at home.

And, he’d sometimes read stories from it to Tommy. When he’d fallen short of stories- (or philosophy books, which Tommy hated) to read him, he’d make stories up, and Techno was brilliant with stories.

Sometimes he made weapons just looking at the ones Phil carried around, and they were so good that Wilbur would steal them from him to “play” with them- like that time Wilbur had come home with a boar’s corpse and a crossbow, and Phil had scolded the boy for hours on end about the dangers of going outside alone, “ _especially to fight wild boars”_ , Dad had said.

Will had insisted that it was his twin’s fault for making the crossbow- but even if it was, Techno never got told off. For all the times Wilbur had been reprimanded, warned or told to be more careful, Techno had only gotten praised.

It was deserved praise, Tommy knew, and that’s why it’d made him angry that Techno still felt bitter about losing to Wilbur- And that Will did everything he could to rub it in his face.

The twins had barely uttered any words to each other for a whole autumn, only the sound of wood against wood came between them.

Tommy had believed that, winter come, once the creek was frozen and it was too cold to fight outside for hours and hours, once dad was always home to tell them to be reasonable, the problem would be over. They would all sit by the fire together, and laugh together, and it’d all be forgotten.

He was only about to find out how wrong he’d been to hope.

If they couldn’t fight outside, they did it inside. And Phil still went missing sometimes. Too many times. When he wasn’t home to drag them back in by the scruff like they were a couple of naughty kittens, they’d fight outside, and Techno once got so sick that Tommy got worried he’d lose a life.

Wilbur and him had then made a short truce for the time being- Wilbur would hunt and bring him hot soup (that Techno would grumpily criticize- it was wither overcooked, or too salty or- but he’d still eagerly drink), he would tell Phil that Techno was okay, that nothing had happened, and he’d sneaked into dad’s lab at night to make healing potions with a care so uncharacteristic to him that Tommy thought he’d gone mad.

They never got caught. Or at least, they never got in so much trouble that Phil had to stop pretending to not notice.

It was almost like things were good again, if it weren’t for Techno’s illness. Then he healed.

And with his illness went the illusion of peace that had embellished the household for a week.

They’d shoot murderous looks at each other, even when Phil was there. They’d try to sneak on each other at night. Wilbur would purposely misplace objects in Techno’s room without him knowing, and Techno once spent an entire morning cutting off low branches from trees near their house to keep Wilbur from climbing.

It also was the first time that Techno got scolded, when he got caught by Phil trying to put poisonous mushrooms in Wilbur’s food. Tommy had _never_ seen his dad so angry, not even the time Tommy had “accidentally” burnt the front porch while trying to make a campfire.

Wilbur had just sat there, smugly smiling at Techno. He didn’t even seem bothered that his own brother would have attempted murder on him. While Techno struggled to hold back tears and Phil lost his last bit of patience, ‘ _How does it feel?’_ He simply seemed to be asking, wordlessly.

Wordless. That’s how it’d all been for what seemed like an eternity. They wouldn’t exchange a single word, and the only person Tommy could pester was Phil- who seemed more and more tired every day.

Wordless, until that one fateful night.

-

Tommy’s arms barely had enough strength to grab onto the edge, and if he’d reacted one second later, his heel wouldn’t have landed right on that ledge.

He was suspended in time, in that moment, in what could’ve happened if he’d been just a bit slower. He saw himself fall, and somehow, he stopped hearing his own heartbeat resonate in his head like an angry monster. It made him calmer, as he slowly sat himself back up, to know that he could’ve just fallen.

That no one could’ve been there to stop him. That his life belonged only to him, if only for a moment.

He’d been scared, he admitted.

But such an adrenaline rush would make anyone scared. His heartbeat, his fast breathing- it meant nothing. Because deep down he knew. He had nothing left.

And being dead wasn’t so bad- he’d only met one dead person, but he seemed to be having quite the peaceful afterlife. At least, compared to what he’d left behind. He’d trade the sorrow of an entire country against a vacation and a resentful son any day.

-

“Wilby!”

“What’d you just call me?”

“Wilbur-

“No, you called me Wilb-

Tommy fought his way out of the icy water, his ears were ringing so, so loud and all his muscles screamed in pain. The only thing louder than all of it, though, was Wilbur’s pained panting. Wilbur’s _agonizing_ panting.

Which of the shadows was Wilbur? What was-

Two yellow orbs glowed in the darkness. A chilling shriek came in their direction, something so deeply disturbed and inhuman that Tommy felt sick to his stomach, and tears started to well up in his eyes. He took a step back, and bumped into a warm mass, a-

He screamed, but a hand covered his mouth.

“Be quiet, Tommy, and step back” it was his brother Wilbur’s voice, whispering, though he seemed to be making a great effort to speak. He’d bumped into Wilbur; Tommy was briefly relieved, before he caught another glimpse of the yellow eyes. They were getting closer by the second.

He grabbed onto Wilbur’s arm, and a warm liquid soaked his own hand. Tommy wondered where Wilbur had found warm water with that cold, before the liquid started turning sticky and Tommy understood with horror that it was Wilbur’s blood.

He wanted to draw his hand away from it, he wanted to run, but what could he do? His legs were made of stiff wood and his mind had been reduced to a battered pile of fear.

“Stand back.” Wilbur would’ve sounded exactly like Phil if his breath didn’t sound like it’d give up at any chance it got.

Maybe his breath would, but Wilbur wouldn’t. He pushed Tommy back, who fell against a tree, helpless.

Tommy’s eyes were getting used to the dark, and he could now see Wilbur’s shape before him. With one hand he held his side, and with the other, a big pointed stick, wielding it in the beast’s direction.

Tommy wished he didn’t, but he could see the beast, too. It was even easier to see than Wilbur, for all of it was a bright white. Almost unnatural.

_Bones,_ Tommy thought, _it’s just moving bones- with armor on them_. He’d heard of the corpses of dead people rising back up to wield arms against the living. Phil always told them about it, when he talked about his travels, and it was the reason they never ever went outside at night.

Tommy had heard of dead people rising back up, but never of dead boars. And yet he knew none of this was a nightmare-Tommy never had nightmares.

It started charging when Wilbur’s knees weakened, and Tommy couldn’t help but scream- or cry, what did he know anymore? He closed his eyes. At least he knew he’d be next. 

After what could’ve been hours, he opened his eyes only to see Wilbur, with a torch, bloody and battered, but beating the damn thing. One of its tusks, detached from the creature’s body, was sticking out from his side, and the arm that was holding the torch looked broken, but the skeleton boar seemed to be losing the fight.

Then Tommy saw Wilbur, just a few steps away from him, lying motionless on the floor. He thought he’d gone crazy before it hit him- the one fighting was Techno. An involuntary whimper left Tommy’s throat- If the thing had won against Will, did Techno stand any chance?

Techno looked like he’d gone mad. He was screaming and cursing, and there was more blood on him than clothing, yet he didn’t give in. For every blow the boar delivered, Techno broke three of its bones.

Until the damned thing stopped moving, and the yellow glimmer in its eyes faded.

Techno spat on its motionless body, and threw the stick he’d been fighting with to the ground.

He turned around, his face so full of blood that even his eyes looked red, and for a moment, Tommy didn’t recognize his brother.

“No one fucks with my family like that” his voice was broken, faint, but Tommy heard the sound of Techno in it, and that was all that mattered to him. He felt his face get warm with scorching tears, then the world faded to black.

**Author's Note:**

> Aaaaand if you feel like you have anything to say about it (feedback pls), feel free! I welcome any kind of comment (ofc criticism too, as long as it's constructive)  
> Also English is like my 4th language so if you see any blatant grammar mistake you absolutely can point it out.


End file.
